MorphoFirst: XML Metadata Client  
---------------------------

Version: 1.0alpha1

Feedback and bugs to: 
                      http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org

Contributors: 
    Matt Jones (jones@nceas.ucsb.edu)
    Ben Leinfelder (leinfelder@nceas.ucsb.edu)
    Ryan McFall (mcfall@hope.edu)
    

This is MorphoFirst, a data management application for managing assessment data.
Morpho allows researchers to describe their data using a comprehensive and
flexible metadata specification, and to share their data publicly or to
specific collaborators.

Morpho's main features include:
  1. Flexible metadata creation and editing
  2. Compliance with Educational Metadata Language
  3. Powerful metadata search for data on the network or locally
  4. Comprehensive revision control for changing data and metadata
  5. Easy-to-use collaboration features

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Further documentation is available under the help menu in Morpho (after it has been installed), or in the "docs"subdirectory of the Morpho installation (after it has been installed), or on the KNB website  (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/morpho/).

INSTALLATION
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1. Uninstall old versions of Morpho.
Windows may get confused when there are multiple versions of Morpho installed, so we recommend that you uninstall previous version using the Windows control panel "Add/Remove Programs" before proceeding with the installation. Note, however, that previously created data packages will NOT be deleted because they are stored in a separate directory. Older packages will contnue to be available when new versions of Morpho are installed.

2. Download the new version, along with Java. Morpho is a Java application. One thus needs to have a Java Virtual  Machine (JVM) installed on the machine running Morpho, preferably  version 1.3 or later.  Morpho can be downloaded with Java for your convenience, or it can be obtained from Sun (http://java.sun.com). With Java the Morpho distribution is a much larger download, so if you already have Java 1.3 or later installed, its better to download the Morpho-only distribution. [Note: Java 1.4 is currently the preferred version of Java for use with Morpho.]

3. Run the installer application.
Download the installation executable and run it on your desired platform. For windows this requires simply double-clicking on the executable file that you downloaded, but may vary depending on your operating system.

STARTING MORPHO
---------------
Once Morpho has been installed, it can be launched using a shortcut, as follows:

    Windows:   Select the "morpho" shortcut found under the windows "Start menu". (You can also use the "morpho.bat" file found in the main Morpho directory.)

    Macintosh: Double click on the morpho icon.

    Linux: Run the "morpho" shell script from the installation directory

If this is the first time you have launched Morpho, you will see a "New Profile" dialog box.  Profiles are Morpho's way of keeping your data separate from other people's data on your computer in case more than one person uses Morpho on your computer.  Simply fill in the forms and the profile will be created for you.

When asked for information about your KNB Metacat account, simply fill in your username and organization from your KNB account.  If you do not have a  KNB account you can get one at the KNB website (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org) by filling out a simple registration form.  This account allows you to  collaborate with other researchers and share and exchange data securely.

Further help information, including a tutorial, can be found in the Morpho "Help..." menu once you can see the main screen. [You can also use a browser to open the file "index.html" which is in the "docs/user/" subdirectory.]

The Knowledge Network for Biocomplexity (KNB)
---------------------------------------------
Morpho is one of a series of tools that are being built for the KNB in order to make ecological data and metadata more accessible and useful to scientists. In particular, the KNB has a distributed metadata catalog called Metacat. Morpho can be used to contribute data and metadata to the KNB and make it accessible in the Metacat system.  To do so, one must have an account on the KNB, which can be obtained for testing purposes by writing to "knb-software@nceas.ucsb.edu".

See the KNB website (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software) for more information and other software tools.

Known Bugs and Feature Requests
-------------------------------
See http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org where we maintain a comprehensive list of the know issues with Morpho, and a list of the new features that have been requested.  Submit reports of new bugs to this address as well.



Version History
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Version 1.0alpha1 is an alpha version meant for only a select group of users

Notes for Windows Users
-----------------------
With some video cards, Java windows will sometimes not be displayed properly. In particular, scroll windows may appear garbled or overwritten. Turning off graphics acceleration corrects the problem on some machines. On others, the  user can simple click in the window or resize it slightly to force a display update.

Notes for Macintosh Users
-------------------------
There are two versions of Morpho available for use with Macintosh computers. One version is for the new OS X operating system and the other is for the older OS 8 and OS 9 systems. This difference is due to the fact that newer versions of the Java Virtual Machine used to execute Morpho are not available for the older Macintosh operating system. For Macintosh systems older than OS X, only Java 1.18 is available, while Java 1.4 is included as part of the Mac OS X installation. 

The latest version of Morpho will only execute on Macintosh systems using OS X.  IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT THE OS X VERSION OF MORPHO SHOULD BE USED WHENEVER POSSIBLE, since only obsolete versions are available for the older operationg systems.   

Also, on the Macintosh, pressing the <Control> key down while clicking is the equivalent of a click of the right mouse button under Windows. Thus "<Control>+ Click" should be used to bring up popup menus when running Morpho on a Macintosh.

Other Credits:
--------------
Icons used in this software were originally designed by other parties, and
have be modified for Morpho.  They include incons from the IconFactory's World
of Aqua series (http://www.iconfactory.com), and icons from Everaldo Coelho's
Conectiva Crystal Series (http://www.everaldo.com).  Please see the 
licenses/ICONREADME.txt for more information about the IconFactory icons.  


Legalese
--------
This software is copyrighted by The Regents of the University of California and the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis and licensed under the GNU GPL; see the "LICENSE" file for details.

This material is based upon work supported by the  National Science Foundation
under Grant No. DEB99-80154, DBI99-04777, and DBI01-31178. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect  the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
